One of the more nasty bugs in Windows 7 64 bit (does not apply to 32 bit) is the 'low USB power bug'.
When the USB bus gets low on power, but not low enough to reset the bus, the operating system sends applications millions of USB bus change messages. This message is supposed to notify any application looking for that message a device has been changed/added to the USB bus.
Once we added the ability to add sticks to the game, after it was started, this problem came up. We get a flood of these messages and eventually the kernel will crash as we merrily answer all of them, taking down the game.
To know if this is a problem, remove all the USB bus devices you can, from the computer and see if the game starts up. If it does, then promptly go get an externally powered USB bus and use it.
Next up; Once the game suffers and unexpected shutdown, it is possible for a configuration file to get corrupted. It is an OS thing we cannot control. Best thing to do, is to try renaming the "settings" folder in the root installation path of the game and trying it to see of the game becomes stable. If it does, then you can selectively copy files from the old "settings" folder to the new one. One, or more, of those files could be corrupted.
As far as logic goes. If one or two computer are having a problem out of thousands, then I tend to suspect those computers interjecting something unexpected into the code path of the game. Typically, we cannot reproduce those problems and have to rely on the customer to help, as the customer is the only one who has access to the system manifesting the problem.
I can understand that being frustrating. We really do not sit around here and try to figure out how to piss off our customers and do the best we can to adhere to Microsoft's specifications. When Microsoft violates its own specification it can wreak havoc with all applications who depend on things to work as advertised. Trouble is, it usually ends up in the customers lap before it can be discovered some obscure bug exists in the OS we (nor any other application company) did not account for.
What is left to do but to help the customer the best way we can. However, it is up to the customer to get it all started. The best way for that is to provide as much detailed information about the system and its configuration. From there, it becomes possible to reach logical conclusions which is where we all want to be.
